Genesis 37:8

Summary

Genesis 37:8 records the reaction of Joseph's brothers to his dream: they ask him mockingly whether he will truly reign or rule over them, phrasing the question with intensified verb forms. The verse closes by noting that this dream, together with his previous words, increased their hatred toward him.

Key words

• timlokh ("will you reign", H4427A) — imperfect verb preceded by its own infinitive absolute malokh ("to reign"), a construction that intensifies the verb, roughly "will you really reign".
• timshol ("will you rule", H4910) — same doubling pattern with its infinitive absolute mashol, paralleling the first clause and reinforcing the mocking tone.
• im ("or", H0518A) — here functions not as a conditional "if" but as a disjunctive linking the two rhetorical questions.
• vayyosifu ("they increased", H3254H) — hiphil (causative) narrative verb; it introduces the following infinitive seno ("to hate", H8130), producing the sense of "they added to hate," i.e., they hated more.
• chalomotav ("his dreams", H2472) and devarav ("his words", H1697G) — both plural construct nouns with pronominal suffix "his", marking the two causes of the brothers' reaction: the dream(s) and Joseph's earlier statements.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative verb vayyomeru ("they said", H0559), followed by the interrogative particle ha (H9008) that marks the question introduced by emphatic doubling: infinitive absolute plus imperfect. This grammatical pattern (malokh timlokh, mashol timshol) is a common Biblical Hebrew device to stress or heighten a verb's force — the brothers are not asking neutrally but pressing the question with rhetorical intensity, something a plain translation such as "will you reign" cannot fully convey without the doubled form.

The two questions are joined by im (H0518A), functioning here as "or," creating a parallel pair: reigning (malokh) and ruling (mashol), both governed by the preposition 'al ("over", H5921A) with pronominal suffixes "us" (-nu, H9035). The repetition of near-synonymous verbs (H4427A and H4910) reinforces the mocking parallelism rather than adding new content.

The final clause uses vayyosifu (H3254H, hiphil) governing the infinitive seno' ("to hate", H8130), a construction meaning "they continued/added to hate," with the direct object marker 'oto (H0853) marking Joseph as the object. The causes are listed with the preposition 'al ("on account of", H5921A) attached to chalomotav ("his dreams") and, via the conjunction ve (H9002), to devarav ("his words").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the doubled Hebrew construction with a participle-plus-future pairing (βασιλεύων βασιλεύσεις, κυριεύων κυριεύσεις), preserving the intensifying doubling but introducing μή, a negative interrogative particle implying an expected negative answer, where the Hebrew ha is grammatically neutral. The Vulgate simplifies both emphatic doublings into plain future questions ("Numquid rex noster eris? aut subjiciemur ditioni tuæ?"), losing the infinitive-absolute intensification found in Hebrew and LXX. The Vulgate also reshapes the final clause into a causal summary ("Hæc ergo causa... invidiæ et odii fomitem ministravit"), differing from the Hebrew's verbal construction "they added to hate him."